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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23236084">what cracks and glitters under pressure</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilbites/pseuds/thedevilbites'>thedevilbites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Breakfast Club (1985)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Parents (mentioned), Angst-ish?, Dom/sub Undertones, Dynamic duo? yes i think so, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Happy Ending, I REGRET NOTHING, Light BDSM, Light Masochism, Light Sadism, Parents be driving them insane, Smut, Sneaking Around, They have such a weird relationship, absolutely nothing, all the feels, but it clicks for them, but they make it work, if feels were pain and bruises and subsequent orgasms, possibly unhealthy coping mechanisms, pretending to know said differences, subtle differences between warmth and heat, they hurt each other way too much, this fic is yum for my tum, would you even call slapping each other around coping?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:29:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23236084</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilbites/pseuds/thedevilbites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He slaps her, hard, and she goes sprawling face-first onto the pavement. </p><p>And that’s how it starts.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Bender &amp; Allison Reynolds, John Bender/Allison Reynolds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>what cracks and glitters under pressure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>welcome to the allison/bender smutfest except it really isn't a smutfest but more of a angsty fucked-up teenagers + slapping each other around = ok then... fest </p><p>enjoy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hit me.”</p><p>“What the hell are you talking about, Allie?” </p><p>“Hit. Me.” she says again, firmer this time, lips pressed into a thin white line as she meets his gaze. </p><p>It takes a second for her words to sink in, but when they do, Bender looks as though she’s slapped him. His easy smirk slides off of his face, and he drops her gaze quickly, as if ashamed. She sees his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows thickly, eyes frantically skating across the dark pavement. </p><p>Allison doesn’t know what he hopes to find, staring at the ground like that. She thinks she wouldn’t understand even if he explained it to her. </p><p>He takes a sudden step away from her, swivels on his heel so his back is facing her but the movement is too smooth, too collected. She’s embarrassed, incredibly so, cheeks reddening with shame. Why would she even say that? What, exactly, did she think she would accomplish? Now she’s gone and ruined whatever chance of--</p><p>Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him turn around. Sees him stand straighter, shoulders squared and pulled back, fingers twitching until they curl into fists at his sides. </p><p>When he finally meets her eyes, she <i>shudders</i>. </p><p>She doesn’t know this Bender. </p><p>This Bender is looking at her with eyes so black she can barely distinguish them from the night around her, this Bender has his jaw clenched so tight he looks like he could shatter his teeth. This Bender has a lifetime of abuse and stereotyping and <i>rawness</i> carved into the way he holds himself, the way he stands. </p><p>Allison is painfully aware of the knife that’s tucked into the waistband of his ratty pants. </p><p>She squeezes her eyes shut, takes a desperate breath. </p><p>This is the Bender who has a criminal record, and a raging vendetta against every figure of authority in his life and it’s no wonder <i>why</i> because he has a mother that refuses to love him and a father that abuses him. A father who nurses the drink, and the high that goes along with it more than his own son. </p><p>And nobody does anything. Nobody even bothers to look at him and ask about his home life, about his interests and passions and hobbies and family, about what he wants to do when he’s older, or where he’s planning to go after high school. </p><p>Nobody cares. </p><p>
  <i>I may as well not even exist at this school, remember?</i>
</p><p>It’s easy to do what she does next. Allison lifts her chin, eyes hardening. </p><p>“Cmon, John, <i>do it.</i>” </p><p>He slaps her, hard, and she goes sprawling face-first onto the pavement. </p><p>And that’s how it starts.</p><p>___</p><p>When she stumbles home that night, she’s got a tapestry of bruises woven across her rib cage, seventeen (she counted) gashes rippling along her clavicles and a nasty shiner, all sore and black and puffy, on her right eye. </p><p>She crawls through the back window so she doesn’t track blood on her carpet.</p><p>Not that her parents would care, anyway.</p><p>___</p><p> </p><p>It becomes a vicious sort of cycle; an effortless routine that shouldn’t be as comforting as it is.  </p><p>They meet up, he slaps her around, and then they go home. And life goes on as (relatively) normal.</p><p>They used to meet at each other's houses, stooping low outside their windows and throwing stray pebbles into the glass as if they were lovers in a sappy teenage romance. Allison’s parents certainly didn’t care enough to notice anything and Bender’s father was always passed out, but they ran into a problem with the neighbors. Allison’s, of course.</p><p>Try as they might, it was taxing to keep quiet, too hard for Allison to bite down on her tongue and stifle a moan after a particularly forceful slap, or for Bender to silence his heavy panting as he slams an elbow into her temple. At first, the only sign that someone else was listening was the gentle yellow light that would suddenly turn on during one of their ‘sessions,’ but after one of Allison’s particularly loud screams roused Mrs.Williams into clambering out of bed to investigate, they knew they had to relocate.</p><p>So, the residential neighborhoods were out. </p><p>Instead, they find themselves relying on Bender’s ‘street-smarts,’ and connections to the criminal underworld. He knew exactly when to meet, those narrow slivers of time and odd little hours of the day when it is too late to be considered nighttime, but too early to be morning. </p><p>They seek solace in other, less-populated places, places that Allison would never have dreamed of going to on her own. She may be ‘weird’ at her highschool, but she’s too out-of-place, too normal for where they usually end up, sticking out like a sore thumb whereas Bender fits right in with their nighttime proclivities. She finds herself clinging tightly to him as they sneak through the streets, fingers digging deep into the fabric of his scratchy coat while he follows an invisible map inside his head. </p><p>Although they are ignored for the most part, it would be plain foolish to not exercise some sort of caution, so they make sure to stay out of certain streets, weaving around the sketchy drunks, the heroin and meth addicts looking for a fix, the homeless men and women prowling the sidewalks, primed and ready for a fight. </p><p>And so they continue, crouching in narrow alleyways, ducking behind dumpsters, and, even once, stumbling beneath the Shermer bleachers, him threading his fingers through her hair and using it as leverage to pin her down onto the dirty gym floor, pulling so hard on her scalp that she sees stars. </p><p>Her parents cared enough to instill the do’s and don’ts, the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs,’ into her psyche, and Allison knows that getting off on the pain, and rushing into the arms of the one who brings it, would definitely fall into the ‘wrongs’ category. </p><p>Still, she can’t help but love it. She’s <i>addicted</i>. </p><p>When he lands a blow across her cheek, bites down on the smooth column of her neck so hard he draws blood, twists her arm behind her back until she cries, she’s left completely and utterly helpless.</p><p>When he hurts her, she feels <i>seen.</i> Wanted. Whole. Respected, even. It’s a fix like no other.</p><p>And maybe, just maybe, that glazed look he gets in his eyes when he slams her up against a wall, or scratches deep lines with her own house keys on her hips, or leaves her wailing in tears, maybe it means he feels that way too.</p><p>___</p><p>They know their limits, and they don’t take things too far. They don’t they don’t they don’t.</p><p>Except for one day, when they do.</p><p>They’re fooling around in the back alley of some old supermarket, long, heavy shadows from long-forgotten buildings throwing them into total darkness. </p><p>“Allison—Allie, keep still,” Bender murmurs in the shell of her ear,  then bites down, hard, when she ignores him, giggling and grinding and squirming against him. He’s got her pressed against one of the walls, the brick wall scraping painfully against her bare flesh with his every move. She can feel something warm, muggy and wet along her back, and knows she’s scraped the flesh raw. Her bra lies abandoned at their feet, and she’s not exactly sure where her shirt ended up. </p><p>“I <i>said,</i>” Bender nestles his knee in between her legs, and she whimpers when his fingers dig into a fresh cut spanning her shoulder, “keep still.”</p><p>She freezes. There’s an edge to his tone, something buried deep inside that she’s only heard come out on rare occasions. </p><p>She wants to bend over backwards for him, for that dark thing inside of <i>him</i> that touches places inside of <i>her</i> that she didn’t even know existed, that she couldn’t reach even if she tried. </p><p>For a second they just stay like that, frozen in space; Bender timing his breaths to her soft gasps as she bleeds onto the concrete wall.</p><p>And then it happens.</p><p>Bender’s hands slide down her body, curl around her waist and suddenly he’s hefting her up up up and she’s wrapping her legs around his waist on instinct, as if she’s an anaconda about to swallow him whole. She feels the blade of his knife press against her stomach before she sees it, goosebumps rising on her body and she doesn’t think she’s ever felt anything this cold before. </p><p>Her whole body feels like its rippling curling burning as he slides a path, never breaking the skin, up to her sternum, and then back down again. And then, with a movement so fluid she doesn’t even feel it, he positions the knife to the left, perpendicular to her skin, and slips his blade underneath her rib cage. </p><p>A second later, she feels a slow thread of pain snake up her body, sending butterflies through her stomach, up her spine, fluttering around her ears until all she can hear is static.</p><p>And the pain. The pain feels <i>so goddamn good</i>. </p><p>That little thread shifts into a ripple, a wave, an ocean, a fucking tsunami, and she’s being hit again and again and <i>again</i>, feels something warm, sticky and wet, tugging gently at her skin from somewhere below her waist followed by a sharp spasm on her right side but she doesn’t want to focus on whatever that is, not really, because she feels a tingling in between her legs and she grinds against him, closes her eyes and lets her head fall against his shoulder as a lightning-coil of pleasure stirs inside of her and she hears him groan as well, drunk on her and her pain and her easy, flawless submission.</p><p>At first she doesn’t even notice she’s horizontal until she feels the cold press of the wet pavement against her bare spine, some putrid smell wafting from the scattered trash besides her, legs aching and sprawled in opposite directions underneath her instead of where they should be—wrapped around Bender’s waist, toes curling as he slams into her to the hilt.</p><p>Bender suddenly appears in front of her eyes, and he looks suddenly, madly, impossibly concerned, eyebrows furrowed together and bottom lip swollen and red as he bites down on it. She can’t help but gape at the tip of his tongue that slides out to wet his lips, and has it always been that red? Cherry-red, a deep burning crimson, like a really bad sunburn—she wants to ask him what’s wrong because there <i>is</i> something wrong, isn’t there? Not with her, no no no she’s totally fine, but with <i>him</i> ‘cause if he was okay he wouldn’t be looking at her like that, all agitated nervousness and short, twitchy movements.</p><p>She tries to reach out for him, let him know that it’s okay, everything's okay, he isn’t alone but she feels so incredibly heavy, as if her arms have turned to stone. She’s tingling, too, thrumming and humming and buzzing and the rush of noises and movement around her is dizzying, making it hard to focus. Bender’s face is still hovering above her, but now he’s getting all blurry</p><p>—there’s a firm pressure on her stomach, a steady pushing, a fervent pumping—</p><p>his hair looks like it’s expanding, swirling and twirling around his head in a dazzling display, like some sort of freakishly monochromatic firework show</p><p>—what is that weird, thick slick on his hands?—</p><p>and she can’t help but get sucked in, eyes glued to whatever light phenomenon is dancing in the night sky, and she could just float away, right here, right now, just push off the ground and sink into the deep expanse of sky above her, get wrapped up in that deep, dark blanket where it’s warm and peaceful and all her worries sink to the ground like lead and she’s suddenly is warm</p><p>—more pressure, but she can’t tell where exactly it’s coming from, where its pushing on her body—</p><p>so so warm, wait, no, that’s wrong because there’s a difference between that nice, pleasant warmth emanating roasting fire and hands wrapped around a mug of hot cocoa and <i>heat</i>, and it’s definitely getting <i>hotter</i>, muggy and humid, the type of heat that buries itself into your throat and squeezes into your lungs and leaves no room for anything else and its sweltering blistering boiling she’s sweating it’s burning, oh God, she’s <i>burning alive</i>—</p><p>___</p><p>She doesn’t know when she manages to pry her lips open, chapped and scratchy with flakes of peeling skin, but also raw and open and bleeding down her chin as she cries.</p><p>She doesn’t know what she says to him, either, only that it’s desperate. And greedy. And hopeful.</p><p>She doesn’t know that his heart nearly stopped when he saw her bleeding out on the concrete.</p><p>She only knows</p><p>—please please please, Bender, oh God, help me help me <i>help</i>—“</p><p> the fire.</p><p>___</p><p>She learns later that he was able to stop the blood by scrunching up his flannel, placing it directly over the open wound, and throwing his whole weight into her body. He mumbles something about pressure to stop the blood flow, and doesn’t say more.</p><p>Whenever they talk about it, something changes within him. She can feel it in the air around them, how his suave demeanor, his suggestive smirks and his sarcastic comments and his obscene fingers and his overall...Benderness dissipates into the atmosphere without so much as a trace.</p><p>It unnerves her. It unnerves <i>him</i>, so they make a safeword, and they pinky promise each other (Bender rolls his eyes when she suggests it, but extends his pinky finger anyway. How he can turn something so innocent into a lewd gesture, for the life of her she does not know) that they will use it. </p><p>And it is enough to make things go back to normal. </p><p>To make them whole again. </p><p>That’s what she repeats under her breath, anyway, face pressed into his neck as she shimmies down his body, leaving a trail of wet, sticky saliva and glittering promises across the span of his chest. </p><p>___</p><p> </p><p>And then Saturday happens. </p><p>Saturday, with everyone’s secrets and lies and deep, dark desires tumbling from their blistered lips like a rolling ball of twine, unraveling and unraveling and unraveling until there’s nothing left to say, nothing that they don’t know about each other. </p><p>Bender teases. And smokes. And yells.</p><p>It’s a side to him that shocks the others: leaves Claire in tears, Andrew speechless, and Brian in some sort of awed stupor, dumbfounded for once in his life. </p><p>Allison only pinches her lips together. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before. Nothing she doesn’t already know.</p><p>And she does know him, doesn’t she? Knows Bender inside and out, feels like she could just burrow into all of his little nooks and crannies and would never ever be found. She doesn’t doubt that he feels the same about her. </p><p>And she can feel him staring at her throughout the day, head cocked to the side and smirking at her big puffy jacket, as if he could somehow see the bruises underneath. </p><p>She sticks her tongue out at him when no one is looking. He mimes slitting her throat right back to her. </p><p>She can’t seem to stay away from him. </p><p>But no one’s asking her to, right? No one even knows about them, and Allison gets the feeling, a small knot in the pit of her stomach, that that’s what’ll make them last. The secrecy of it all. The pure, unbridled intimacy. </p><p>Because when they’re with each other, they are just themselves. At times brutal, eyes reflecting a visceral blackness, as dark as the bruises he leaves on her skin. At times gentle, all soft hesitant touches and quiet breaths. </p><p>When the clock strikes four, and they leave the building, Allison waits until everyone has left, and follows him across the field. </p><p>Her smile glints maliciously against the fervent sunlight. </p><p>She’s ready for the pleasure, the pain.</p><p>She’s ready for everything.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>let me satiate your overwhelming curiosity by informing you that allison and bender are here for the long run so obviously they stay together forever, you feel me?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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